TY - JOUR
T1 - Recalling feature bindings differentiates Alzheimer’s disease from Frontotemporal Dementia
AU - Cecchini, Mario
AU - Sanches Yassuda, Mônica
AU - Santoro Bahia, Valéria
AU - Cruz de Souza, Leonardo
AU - Cerqueira Guimarães, Henrique
AU - Caramelli, Paulo
AU - Carthery-Goulart, Maria Teresa
AU - Patrocínio, Flávia
AU - Foss, Maria Paula
AU - Tumas, Vitor
AU - Lima-Silva, Thaís Bento
AU - Dozzi Brucki, Sônia Maria
AU - Nitrini, Ricardo
AU - Della Sala, Sergio
AU - Parra Rodriguez, Mario
PY - 2017/10
Y1 - 2017/10
N2 - It has been challenging to identify clinical cognitive markers that can differentiate patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) from those with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD). The Short-term Memory Binding (STMB) test assesses the ability to integrate colors and shapes into unified representations and to hold them temporarily during online performance. The objective of this study is to investigate whether free recall deficits during short-term memory binding (STMB) test can differentiate patients with AD from those with bvFTD and controls. Participants were 32 cognitively intact adults, 35 individuals with AD and 18 with bvFTD. All patients were in the mild dementia stage. Receiver-operating characteristics (ROC) analyses were used to examine the diagnostic accuracy of the STMB. The results showed that AD patients performed significantly worse than controls and bvFTD patients in the STMB test, while the latter groups showed equivalent performance. The bound condition of the STMB test showed an AUC of 0.853, with 84.4% of sensitivity and 80% of specificity to discriminate AD from controls and an AUC of 0.794, with 72.2% of sensitivity and 80% of specificity to differentiate AD from bvFTD. Binding deficits seem specific to AD. The free recall version of the STMB test can be used for clinical purposes and may aid in the differential diagnosis of AD. Findings support the view that the STMB may be a suitable cognitive marker for AD.
AB - It has been challenging to identify clinical cognitive markers that can differentiate patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) from those with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD). The Short-term Memory Binding (STMB) test assesses the ability to integrate colors and shapes into unified representations and to hold them temporarily during online performance. The objective of this study is to investigate whether free recall deficits during short-term memory binding (STMB) test can differentiate patients with AD from those with bvFTD and controls. Participants were 32 cognitively intact adults, 35 individuals with AD and 18 with bvFTD. All patients were in the mild dementia stage. Receiver-operating characteristics (ROC) analyses were used to examine the diagnostic accuracy of the STMB. The results showed that AD patients performed significantly worse than controls and bvFTD patients in the STMB test, while the latter groups showed equivalent performance. The bound condition of the STMB test showed an AUC of 0.853, with 84.4% of sensitivity and 80% of specificity to discriminate AD from controls and an AUC of 0.794, with 72.2% of sensitivity and 80% of specificity to differentiate AD from bvFTD. Binding deficits seem specific to AD. The free recall version of the STMB test can be used for clinical purposes and may aid in the differential diagnosis of AD. Findings support the view that the STMB may be a suitable cognitive marker for AD.
KW - Alzheimer’s disease
KW - behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia
KW - differential diagnosis
KW - memory binding
KW - short-term memory
M3 - Article
SN - 0340-5354
VL - 264
SP - 2162
EP - 2169
JO - Journal of Neurology
JF - Journal of Neurology
IS - 10
ER -